Holiday pay scheme boosts B&CE profit

The B&CE benefits company last year saw an 11% increase in total receipts for its holiday pay, EasyBuild pension, and accident and death cover schemes.

Income rose from £357m to £396m for the year ended 31 March, according to the company’s latest annual report. Payouts under the holiday pay scheme rose from £308m to £326m. Sir John Chilcot, B&CE chairman, told the company’s annual meeting that the Template package of benefits is currently operated by more than 6,000 employers on behalf of more than 216,000 operatives.

He said the EasyBuild stakeholder pension continued to expand. Some 395,000 operatives held an EasyBuild policy. But less than one in 10 – about 48,000 – of these operatives had made at least one contribution themselves to the scheme since its launch in 2001. The total value of the stakeholder pension fund stood at over £328m at the end of July this year. The five-year charge-free period for EasyBuild ended last April when a fee of 0.65% was introduced. This is expected to generate £2m in the current year.

During the past year, 511 lump-sum death benefit claims were paid out. Also, 119 accident benefit claims were paid. Workers continue to benefit from the old lump-sum retirement scheme that operated before the introduction of EasyBuild. Its fund value stands at £600m and relates to 1.2 million workers with accrued service between 1982 and 2001. Last year, 6,615 retiring and former operatives received lump-sum benefits from this fund to the value of £20m.

Sir John Chilcot noted that the B&CE company had supported the industry’s pilot occupational health scheme. This had proved “very successful” and the company continued to back its development as a national scheme.

New appointments to the company’s board include Steven Murphy, of UCATT, and David Smith, who is chairman of the Scottish Building training and apprentice council. The latter replaces John Scott, who died last month after a short illness.

[Contract Journal, 11 October 2006, p 4]